BotRK Nerfs Are Coming (Red Post)

As expected, Riot will not leave Blade of the Ruined King in its current state for very long; a hotfix will be heading our way as soon as Riot are happy with the server stability. This is no surprise, more interesting is the very in-depth post by Xypherous about what the aim of BotRK is.

1. The item is DPS efficient on squishy characters

Kind of. Fundamentally, any item built off of current health will always look overpowered when it works. This is because the optimal case for current health damage never actually happens in game. For example, let’s say that BoRK breaks even with BT at 1700 health for the target. What this actually means is that BoRK breaks even with BT at 1700 health for the target assuming there is no other damage sources affected the target at all. Given that almost every character has base damage on their skills and the like – the balance of numbers shifts terribly – For example, if your mage deals 600 AoE damage to the enemy team – BoRK needs to be extra-efficient to still be a valid HP counter at this point. This is also why the active is as strong as it is – The use of the active nerfs the passive damage of the item.

2. Current % Health Paradigms are flawed – because the AD carry will follow after the burst casters

This is somewhat true to a certain extent – but the goal of a counter-item is to counter niche cases not strengthen already existing cases. The current BoRK for example, excels at self-peel and is especially good in 1v1 case against bruisers (regardless of what class you are.)And the current health paradigm allows the item to essentially self-nerf itself when other elements of the game are strong (burst casters).

3. It is a mush-rush first item for a carry?

Kind of.

Again, this boils down to – How much damage is your support adding to your combo? In a Leona lane, for example, you’d be hard pressed to argue that their HP pool is actually 1200 – or how effective your autoattacks are.

4. The active adds more burst than the previous incarnation.

Potentially but it’s generally weaker than the previous active – and that’s why it rolled out – it was viewed as net neutral in most contexts.

150 + 0.5 TAD on an item with 45 AD roughly breaks even with the previous active at 1466 health – which is an HP threshold that only tanks/bruisers break early.

5. But the item is clearly overpowered on live and ruining the game experience!

Most likely. However, I’m more concerned with whether the item feels counterable at this stage. Rest assured though, we’re not going to wait on the next patch to fix it. We knew going out that the item could have come out pretty crazy – and watching it over the weekend – it has been pretty crazy at is.

So we’ll be hotfixing this as soon as we’re comfortable with the server situation (Along with some other bugs.)

Nerfs and buffs come and go; but posts as awesome as this, that show the thought process behind the items, are a much rarer beast. Thanks Xyph, keep it up.

See the original post and have your own say on the official forums here.